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DVD : National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets (Widescreen)Browse or Search and Buy Online our Best Sellers Shopping Sales of DVD and National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets (Widescreen). Rating:  - National Treasure 2Item arrived quickly and in great shape. It wasn't wrapped in the package though. I thought with it being listed "new" it would have been. Other than that great buy! Rating:  - 1st, was better to be honest i truly liked the first one alot better.but still a good buy Rating: - DVD movie reviewThe ordering process was easy and the movie was entertaining. The quality of the DVD was very good. Rating: - Didn't enjoy this one at all. This is another movie of our times filled with all the holes in a plot that neither producers or audience mind at all with the same sarcastic putting someone down with a sexi smile. And it's true to Disney; the perfect happily ever after ending where two separated couples (in the same family nevertheless) decide to love each other all over again. Neato. Disney is top notch with fairy tales like the colors and details of a Thomas Kincaid canvas. Even the awkward underdog, Gates' sidekick gets a gal at the end! National Treasure 2 is filled with contradictions between true history and what was made for the screen. And as one who is proud of my own heritage, I noticed that in the scene near the end when the president and Gates are in the hanger, all the state flags of the Union can be seen in the foreground, all except of course, poor Mississippi. If you remember the flag's design, you'll understand this pathetic attempt at political correctness. Disney is top notch with political correctness! I think a greater audience, however will notice that the luck of actually surviving the dozens of near misses are pretty far fetched to the woefully unreal. On one hand you have fiction and on the other you have the bullet proof luck of the Road Runner's Coyote. Here are some other unnatural parts of the film that I found more than a little distracting. -They found oil in the chambers of the lost city of gold to light their lamps. For one, ground oil had not been discovered until the 19th century in America and was rarely used as a lighting method. Whale oil was used and no way indians could have had whale oil in South Dakota. -The stone monuments and paths in the so-called city of gold within Mount Rushmore did not contain stone native to that region such as limestone. -It seemed too easy for Gates and his posy to avoid both the Royal Guard in Buckingham Palace and the White House and the FBI. They had the luck of spies. -The same moment they decided to capture the president just so happened to be the one moment where the president would be speaking at a specific place where Gates knew there was a secret tunnel to accomplish it. -Many of the clues and riddles were solved way too quick, even for a character like Gates. They were much to general for him to discover meaning in less than a minute. Like for example atop Mount Rushmore when he discovered in twenty-seconds what a cloudless rain meant. It took him less than twenty seconds to find the exact one-foot of space on the giant summit of Mount Rushmore to poor the water on to the rock to reveal the cave opening. -Within the mountain they are swinging around on ropes that were thousands of years old. Yeah... -Isn't it strange how Gates' family history had been involved in one way or another with both the secret treasure of Alexander hidden by the forefathers and eighty-nine years later in a completely different treasure hidden scene, the Gates were involved with the City of Gold? The odds are impossible sense neither story had a connection to it nor neither ancestor had been involved except through chance. -Lastly, it is a laughable chance that the expert on the vague yet specific era of Native writing that Gates needed to decode a clue just so happened to be his Mom. And I have a historical bone to pick with this movie. Characters at the beginning of the movie refer to Southern sympathizers in the North as traitors against the Union and villains associated with Lincoln's assignation. To call men working for the independence of a set of states from their former government traitors would be no different than calling those who worked for the independence of the set of colonies from England traitors. "If we were wrong in our contest, then the Declaration of Independence of 1776 was a grave mistake and the revolution to which it led was a crime. If Washington was a patriot; Lee cannot have been a rebel."-Major General Wade Hampton, Confederate Cavalry The "traitors" referred to in this film were basically a high-organized network of Northern citizens during the civil war that were committed to helping a new nation achieve its independence from the Union and obtain peace and an end to the bloodshed. A character in the film referred to them as Southern extremists. They were portrayed as those responsible for Booth's four years too late point blank shot. Actually, there is no evidence that ever existed which could truly link the Knights of the Golden Circle or any Confederate group with the assignation of Lincoln. In another scene in the film a child stands his ground against the main character, Gates, arguing that Lincoln's death had been master minded by members of the Federal Government by pointing out that on the night Lincoln was shot, his bodyguard was strangely absent and that the one bridge unguarded by Federal troops that evening gave Booth his easy escape. Yet, the main character, with a chilling similarity to many of today's revisionists reproved with the more accepted teachings when in truth, the young character's argument has footing in historical evidence. In the movie's opening scene, a subtitle reads that the Civil War had been over for five days on April 14th. On April 14th the armies and navy of the Confederate states, with the exception of the Army of Northern Virginia were still active in the field. The Confederate government, led by Davis, continued to operate even while evading Grant's forces in Virginia and North Carolina. Civil War combat and the maneuvering of both Confederate and Union forces did not end until at least a month later. Brig. General Stand Watie, the highest-ranking Native American officer in the Civil War, was the last to formally surrender a Confederate land force on the date of June 23, 1865. The Confederate raider, CSS Shenandoah after being the only Civil War ship to of completely circled to globe, did not bring down their flag until docking in Liverpool, England, in November. Despite what happened on 9th or 14th of April of 1865, the war continued. In the movie, the character Gates boasts that his ancestor, killed by a Southern bad guy, had died for his country. To be perfectly technical, his ancestor's character was killed defending a country whose cause was to destroy another's independence. Though the film is not based on the Civil War, it includes many of the revisionist barbs found in films that center on the topic. What if the careless and off handed slandering towards the South in National Treasure 2 was directed towards the North instead? What if the character of Gates had, instead of the original plot, embarked on a treasure hunt to prove that his ancestors was not among the officers in Kilpatrick's 1864 raid to assassinate President Davis? What if a Unionist group in the South had been portrayed as traitors? When you take a moment to imagine how this would offend you, understand then, why I feel that films like this are offensive to those of us that feel compelled to defend our heritage. Or any devoted to historical truth. Rating:  - Unbelievable to the Point I LaughedNational Treasure 2: Book of Secrets is a $130 million adventure film that looks great, has a great pace, and stars Nicholas Cage, Harvey Keitel, Helen Mirren, and Ed Harris, among others. All the more shame because no emphasis was put into making this story anymore than a souped-up version of a Dan Brown novel. Off the subject but I actually thought Ron Howard's Da Vinci Code film was better. Jon Turteltaud (3 Ninjas, Cool Runnings) directs and the infinitely successfully Jerry Bruckheimer produces. One thing is for sure, Book of Secrets aimed to make money and that happened so we might see more sequels. Like the first film, this one focuses on intricate and ambitious conspiracy theories in American history. This story ultimately surrounds the assassination of President Lincoln. Benjamin Gates (Cage) is back and finds himself personally motivated to unveil the truth. So much so, he finds a ways to infiltrate both Buckingham Palace and the Library of Congress, in addition to kidnapping the president of the United States. National Treasure 2 is an easy target and I could probably be more critical but other than the perpetually creepy Jon Voight, the cast, which is really just punching in for a days work, is better than one would expect here and even half-hearted performances out of Ed Harris and Helen Mirren are better than the average actor. Nicholas Cage may get even more credit for putting almost everything into such trivial screenplays, but the cynic in me is sad that he seems to only care about the money time and time again. I guess he's just a fun-loving guy but I think of films like Wild At Heart, Adaptation, and Leaving Las Vegas, and it reminds me that Cage is one of the most talented actors alive today. Anyway, I definitely don't recommend this film unless you're tolerant to outrageously unreal plot elements and a quick and shallow popcorn flick. |